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(Editor’s note: The story has been amended to include response from Journey Canada to some of the specific allegations included in the story.)

As a reporter, I sometimes find myself as puzzled as the next person when it comes to figuring out why certain stories hit the news, and others don’t. As more and more reports about conversion therapy are reaching the headlines, I decided to answer the question, for myself.

Though conversion therapy itself defies easy explanation — it is variously described as anything from your grandmother saying you’ll burn in hell if you’re gay, to having electrodes deliver an electric shock to dissuade being aroused by pictures of same-sex intimacy — the controversy about the practice is arguably even more difficult to pin down. Conversion therapy dances among human rights defined by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, touching upon the right of every person to freedom of expression, of religion and personal security. The spectre of conversion therapy floats amongst church congregations, in municipal offices, and in the political maelstrom swirling in the run-up to a federal election in October.

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The question of why conversion therapy has become a hot topic, and why now, becomes crucial for readers keen to understand its roots. Is conversion therapy in the news because it’s an expression of one of the most visible public and political debates in Canadian culture — that of identity? Or is it a symptom of the federal jockeying for position that’s part of any election, a wedge issue designed to split votes among liberal and conservative voters? Furthermore, does it even exist, at least in Canada?

Even as conversion therapy is being banned in St. Albert, for instance, it’s not altogether clear where people living in St. Albert would find such a remedy, should they be so inclined. Natalie Joly, the St. Albert councillor who is spearing a ban in that suburban enclave, acknowledges that she doesn’t know of any place conversion therapy is happening in her city.

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In Edmonton, city councillors will debate the city’s position regarding conversion therapy on Aug. 21.

Several people interviewed by the Journal for this story, including members of the recently disbanded committee on conversion therapy struck by the former Notley government, could not refer me to anyone who had been through the practice recently. Hard statistics on the practice range from largely non-existent to inaccurate.

Experts to whom I spoke point to only one Canadian survey that can be confidently quoted when it comes to the size of the population affected, conducted by Vancouver’s Community Based Research Centre. The CBRC mounts a survey of several thousand gay and bisexual men across the country every three years and found in its 2010 survey of 8,000 men that four per cent of respondents had experienced conversion therapy, though there was no definition of what was meant by the term.

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Extrapolating from that data, Vancouver epidemiologist Travis Salway says as many as 20,000 sexual minority men in Canada have been exposed.

Experts in the field say it’s hard to locate statistics and sufferers because conversion therapy has been driven underground. Those who work with LGBTQ2 people say members of this minority group have been traumatized by conversion therapy and want it stopped.

Protestors rally outside the Alberta legislature in Edmonton in support of banning conversion therapy in early June. David Bloom/PostmediaDavid Bloom/Postmedia

Edmonton-Centre MP Randy Boissonault, the prime minister’s special advisor on LGBTQ2 issues, insists a law banning conversion therapy would not be based on anecdotal evidence alone. But he acknowledges gathering research and creating a legal framework for any potential law will be slow, noting that a proposed federal committee to examine the issue won’t likely be able to be struck before the writ is dropped for the October election.

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In the meantime, Boissonault says government staffers will be reaching out to stakeholders (primarily human rights groups) over the summer as part of the government’s proposed plan to criminalize conversion therapy.

“It’s important that the department officials and legal draftspeople get the nuance on this right,” Boissonault said in an interview. “We need to make sure any changes to the criminal code are going to be charter-friendly.” (See sidebar.)

Details surrounding what will happen with any new conversion therapy laws, much like the practice itself, are at this point amorphous. Still, advocates for gay rights say a lack of information on who does it, and what exactly they do and where, should not serve as an excuse to do nothing.

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“What survivors have said over and over again is that they do want and need a ban, in part for the same reason we needed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,” says Salway, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health who made a presentation this past spring on conversion therapy to the federal government’s standing committee on health.

“Will it eradicate all conversion therapy? No, and we shouldn’t expect it. Often, the goal is to minimize the harm.”

History of harm

So. What harm is caused by conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy?

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In the past, long before there were laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation, many mental health professionals considered homosexuality a mental illness. In fact, homosexuality was only taken out of the American bible of psychiatric disorders — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM — in 1987.

In the past, some homosexuals were offered remedies for their condition, including therapies to dissuade them from being gay such as nausea drugs and other sexual response inhibitors, shock therapy and aversion therapy. Such therapies have since been proven to be ineffective — they don’t change anyone’s sexuality — as well as psychologically traumatic.

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The Canadian Psychological Association, which represents psychologists, stated in 2015 that “conversion or reparative therapy can result in negative outcomes, such as distress, anxiety, depression, negative self-image, a feeling of personal failure, difficulty sustaining relationships and sexual dysfunction.”

The World Health Organization posted a statement in 2012 noting this type of therapy is a “severe threat to the health and human rights of the affected persons.”

Gradually, regulating bodies within the medical professions in North America have spoken out, declaring conversion therapy to be both useless and unethical. Experts say it is unlikely to be currently practiced in health care settings by Canadians in regulated professions.

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But advocates for gay rights say conversion is still carried on by unlicensed individuals, faith leaders and others in cultural communities where it is taboo to be gay. Family members may still pressure gay sons and daughters to consider a different option, and gay individuals still struggle with being a minority subject to a wide variety of subtle and not-so-subtle suggestions that they stop being who they are.

Pressure to change

Often that pressure to change comes from within. That’s what led Edmonton’s Kevin Schultz to consider conversion therapy in 2005, when he was in his late 30s and a member of a local evangelical Christian church. Married, with children, Schultz knew he was gay but didn’t want to be. A fellow parishioner referred Schultz to a Christian program called Living Waters Canada.

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“I was reaching the point where I couldn’t hold it in anymore … I was feeling like I can’t keep pretending,” says Schultz. “I thought if there was a way out, who wouldn’t take it?”

He joined a 10-month program with Living Waters (an organization that changed its name to Journey Canada in 2015). The program was delivered weekly from an office in a west-end industrial area. About 50 men and women attended the group, which cost about $120 a week. Each session would begin with an hour of biblical teachings and then the group would break into small clusters to talk, pray and go through a workbook together. In an email, Journey Canada says its program costs $450 for 30 weeks.

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“They believe that no one is born homosexual, that God never creates anyone that way, and that something must have happened,” Schultz says of the group’s approach to being gay.

Schultz said he was asked to create a family tree, and circle all the relatives that might have sinned in some way, perhaps through alcoholism or some form of abuse, sins that might be responsible for his homosexuality.

“We went into prayer meetings and confessed to other people’s sins. It made no sense to me, but it was supposed to work.”

Schultz says there were many rules with Living Waters. Participants weren’t allowed to exchange contact information or get in touch with each other outside of the group. He recalls doing odd group exercises, one of which put participants through a “rebirth” that saw them covered in blankets.

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“People forced you down and then you had to squiggle out like you were being born,” says Schultz. “Women would be there to hold you as if you were just a newborn.”

In an email, Journey Canada says it “never does anything like the ‘birthing’ ritual or ‘family tree’ process described in any of its programs.”

Eventually, Schultz decided the program was useless and that he was wasting time and money. But one incident in particular led him straight out the door. A young man in his early twenties was talking in the small group sessions about seeing visions and said that he heard a woman telling him to kill himself.

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“I thought he was having a psychotic break and needed medical attention. But the group leader said ‘that’s a demon and you need to pray it out,'” says Schultz. “I said ‘I can’t be a part of this’ and walked out. People called after me, but I was so angry and upset. They (were) doing very dangerous things, not just about being gay, but with people who are psychologically fragile.”

In an email, Journey Canada said it “has policies and procedures in place to respond to any suicidal ideation which comes to light through any of its programs. It takes all such statements very seriously. The event described, if it occurred as alleged, would have resulted in the group leader and the program coordinator documenting the issue and making a support plan with the participant for their own safety and security.”

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Eventually, Schultz came to grips with his own sexuality. Now 52, he has been married to his husband for eight years. He says he’s glad conversion therapy is being exposed and suspects that the same practices still go on, except more quietly.

“They’ve changed the words, but underground, nothing is changing. It’s just what they call it.”

Today, Journey Canada’s website says it offers “discipleship” programs, which are 18-weeks long, for adults to bring people closer to God. There is support with Journey Canada for people with same-sex attraction, notes the website, while also clearly stating that Journey Canada does not practise conversion therapy.

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An interview with Journey Canada’s communications manager, Graeme Lauber of Calgary, reveals how the organization works with folks who are gay or who think they might be gay. Lauber himself says he has “gay feelings,” although he does not specifically refer to himself as gay. About seven years ago, he found his way to Journey Canada because he was having an identity crisis.

Raised in the church, Lauber, 46, says he “had beliefs about homosexuality, but I also had these feelings.”

Regardless of his gay feelings, Lauber got married and had three children, but “eventually, I started to have a crisis and wonder ‘is my sexuality who I really am, and have I made a big mistake in getting married and having children?'”

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Journey Canada, Lauber says, gave him a safe place for his feelings.

“Nobody told me what to do with those feelings. They just said, ‘we love you, and God loves you, and let’s pray about that.’ For me, it was like a re-arrangement of priorities. My commitment to my faith and marriage became more important than my sexuality. The feelings never changed, but they just became a lower priority.”

Lauber says it took him four years to wrestle with his identity.

“It was not easy to get to. It’s hard-won, and now I am interested in protecting that for myself and my family.”

Lauber says there is more than one way to be “gay in the world.”

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“I have other priorities, I want to have the opportunity to be in community with people who feel the same way and to connect with them, and have the opportunity to encourage one another.”

Journey Canada offers its discipleship programs in Edmonton at a number of local churches and educational institutions. Pastor Jason Hagen of Fellowship Baptist Church, which rents space to Journey to deliver its programs in the church, says his church is aware of the controversy that surrounds Journey Canada. Though neither he nor anyone in his congregation has attended sessions, they looked carefully at the Journey Canada materials before renting the space out.

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“When I look at their program, at least on paper, it’s clear they’re not advocating or practising conversion therapy. It is completely a discipleship ministry and the scriptures are a huge player in there — the Old and the New Testament, the work of Jesus, the identity that Christ gives us as children of God through his life, death, resurrection and ascension …. that accusation (of conversion therapy) doesn’t hold weight as far as we are concerned.”

“Journey has no reason to be concerned. We’re not trying to change anybody’s sexuality.”

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Fighting extremism

Kris Wells has been watching the current debate about conversion therapy with great interest. As a MacEwan University associate professor, he holds the Canada Research Chair for the Public Understanding of Sexual and Gender Minority Youth. He is also co-editor of the International Journal of LGBT Youth, the world’s leading research publication on LGBT youth.

Nothing in the current debate about conversion therapy is new to him. He’s been watching a similar situation unfold in the United States over the past five years as states such as California pass legislation banning conversion therapy.

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“Now with St. Albert, we’re seeing the domino effect … led by socially progressive councillors who want to ensure that (conversion therapy) doesn’t happen and want to make a value statement that they are welcoming and open and inclusive.

MacEwan University associate professor Kristopher Wells is the Canada Research Chair for the Public Understanding of Sexual and Gender Minority Youth.David Bloom/Postmedia

Wells says more gay pride flags and rainbow crosswalks are signs of support locally, but passing laws such as ones being suggested to stop conversion therapy are something concrete that can be done by allies of the gay community. When asked why it’s all bubbling up now, and particularly in Alberta, Wells notes that the climate has changed for gay people since the Kenney government came into power.

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Wells is alarmed by the province’s rollbacks of LGBTQ student rights through recent changes to the Education Act, which stipulate, among other things, that there will be no time limit for school principals to grant a student’s request to start a gay-straight alliance club, and removes guarantees that students can use words like“gay” or “queer” in any school club names.

Disbanding the nascent conversion therapy working group set up by the NDP was another blow.

“It’s tremendously disappointing to see the Kenney government disband the working group … They say there is no role for the provincial government (in banning conversion therapy), but that doesn’t get at the deceptive nature of conversion therapy.”

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The government has so far balked at a provincial ban, as ministers say the practice is not a billable health service, so there’s little they can do to enforce it.

Wells says religious fundamentalism and extreme anti-LGBTQ perspectives are bubbling up across the province, and it’s important to “connect the dots” between those things and the current call for conversion therapy legislation. He says proposed federal criminal sanctions may well turn into an election issue this fall in Canada.

If that’s the case, questions about conversion therapy will continue to bubble, and answers may continue to be elusive. But here’s a concept I came away with after spending several weeks on this issue, trying hard to nail down specifics, as reporters do. The concept came care of UBC epidemiologist Travis Salway, who urges people and organizations to focus less on any one stance, and rather ask a larger question of ourselves and our institutions.

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“The bigger focus should be how do we want to treat people when they express same-gender attraction or desires? One option on the table that has been tried for a very long time in Canada is to tell these people that (gay feelings) are inconsistent with societal values and you should try to hide them, suppress them.

“What I would suggest is to shift the balance away from that, so that people can feel a sense of affirmation and self-esteem irrespective of how they understand their sexuality and gender,” says Salway.

“And that’s not easy work.”

Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault rises during statements in the House of Commons on June 13, 2016, in Ottawa.The Canadian Press/Postmedia

Slow journey to making conversion therapy a crime in Canada

Though the upcoming federal election is likely to stall progress, time is not the only barrier to crafting new criminal sanctions against conversion therapy.

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A number of thorny issues face legal minds when, and if, a new law is drafted. At least three of those issues rest within Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, according to University of Alberta professor Eric Adams, an expert on the charter.

“(The question is) does a ban on conversion therapy interfere with freedom of religion, expression or liberty rights?” Adams said in an interview. “And at least on one, or possibly multiple rights, the answer is likely to be yes.”

For instance, a ban on conversion therapy could trigger a complaint by a religious group that offers what is arguably conversion therapy on the grounds that their religion prohibits sex between people of the same gender. Adults who want to try conversion therapy could argue it is within their liberty rights under the charter to access such programs.

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Adams says, however, that the charter grants the government the ability to curtail rights if pursuing public objectives within reasonable limits justified in a free and democratic society.

Some background. Edmonton Centre Liberal MP Randy Boissonnsault, the prime minister’s special advisor on LGBTQ2 issues, says his government wants to place criminal sanctions on conversion therapy — a discredited and harmful practice that tries to convert homosexual people into heterosexual people.

(The question is) does a ban on conversion therapy interfere with freedom of religion, expression or liberty rights? And at least on one, or possibly multiple rights, the answer is likely to be yes.

Eric Adams

Boissonnault’s June announcement came in the wake of moves by provinces and municipalities to ban conversion therapy through the bylaws and regulations available to different levels of government.

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Already, the city of Vancouver has banned conversion therapy, and St. Albert recently became Alberta’s first municipality to make a move to outlaw the practice for minors. Councillors there unanimously passed a motion to draft a bylaw refusing a business license or development permit to a business with conversion therapy in its business model.

In 2015, Ontario passed a law preventing medical practitioners from billing the government health plan for conversion therapy. In 2018, Nova Scotia banned the practice for anyone under 19 and made it uninsurable for adults. Manitoba has also issued an edict demanding the province’s regional health authorities and health profession regulatory colleges ensure conversion therapy is not practiced within Manitoba’s health-care system. In Alberta, members of the provincial government have said it is opposed to the practice, but as it is not a billable health service, there is little the province can do.

If any of the provincial or municipal bans were challenged, there is a chance that a court might find such bans exceed the legal jurisdiction of cities and provinces. But as Coun. Natalie Joly, who proposed St. Albert’s prohibition, notes, a ban makes a “value statement” regardless of its efficacy.

While provinces and cities have used whatever powers they feel they have at their disposal to issue bans, activists say the patchwork approach nation-wide falls short of what’s needed — a federal law banning the practice, one with criminal sanctions including fines and/or jail time.

There is a high bar to justify the creation of a new criminal law.

Adams says the federal government would have to take the position that conversion therapy is harmful and that a prohibition with a criminal penalty is necessary to preserve the safety of Canadians. But just saying a practice is harmful won’t necessarily convince a court, should the law be challenged, that the practice is harmful. For instance, though they were ultimately unsuccessful, those against the federal government’s firearms registry argued in court that the registry was not necessary for public safety.

“But my hunch here is that there is enough social science evidence around the harms of conversion therapy to back criminal law in this area,” says Adams.

There isn’t a robust body of research outlining how many people have experienced conversion therapy or are likely to suffer harm from it in the future. But Adams says lawmakers don’t need evidence that they are stopping an ongoing practice to satisfy the criminal law jurisdiction.

“The courts have said that governments can act proactively to protect the public,” says Adams.

Some have speculated it would be safer for the federal government to ban conversion therapy for minors alone, because Canadian law allows for minors to be protected on a number of fronts, such as when they require a blood transfusion that is against their religion. But Adams says if lawmakers are making the point that conversion therapy is harmful, they might not want to target only minors but rather protect all people from harm.

On the other hand, if the law is too broad, it might trigger the section of the charter that protects Canadians’ personal security, and which gives people the right to make their own autonomous choices as adults.

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